Addendum:

Rory Parle of www.soylentred.net has quite rightly pointed out a flaw in my previous post.

The following is extracted from an email he sent me (because my comments box has inexplicably disapeared).

"a small correction to your religion in schools piece:"Our constitution still retains the abhorrent section protecting theposition of the Catholic Church in Ireland (a political concessionmade in order to garner more support for the government at the time)."No it doesn't. That was removed by the 5th amendment in 1973.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

The constitution is on our side. I like to mention this fact whenpeople refer to Ireland as a Catholic country."

Thank you Rory.

Funny, you think I would have known that having taken history at Leaving Cert level.